


How long until forever?

by farevenasdecidedtouse, Zhisanin



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:08:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/pseuds/farevenasdecidedtouse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhisanin/pseuds/Zhisanin
Summary: A: This is a direct sequel ofthis otherfic (which was backdated for a reason) and doesn't make any sense without it. Please read the tags there carefully.I wish I could find the origin of the quote “I only write down one half of everything that I think of and you must find out the other half. This gives the real pleasure of both reading and writing.” because whoever said that, was talking about me.





	How long until forever?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Birthday Gift for Eiraän Drazhin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9449024) by [Zhisanin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhisanin/pseuds/Zhisanin). 



> A: This is a direct sequel of [this other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9449024) fic (which was backdated for a reason) and doesn't make any sense without it. Please read the tags there carefully.  
>   
> I wish I could find the origin of the quote “I only write down one half of everything that I think of and you must find out the other half. This gives the real pleasure of both reading and writing.” because whoever said that, was talking about me.

 

> _Visionary berry poisoning is quite rare, due to two main reasons. One is that the lethal dose is about two cupful of berries (which of course varies from individual to individual), while the plant itself is rare and bears very few fruit. The other is that the berries, if eaten whole, pass through the body intact, too quickly to have any effect, thanks to their thick, waxy skin; otherwise, either chewed, mashed into a pulp or dried and pulverized, they taste so bitter and acidic that it is practically impossible to eat them accidentally, or even willingly, without fits of vomiting. No amount of honey can make them in any way palatable - however, if someone does force and keep them down, vile taste notwithstanding, in low doses they are said to grant visions, even true ones of the chosen god or goddess._
> 
> _It is also said, though, that once the taste turns from bitter to sweet on one's tongue, there is but one god to see and it is Ulis._
> 
> _In some instances and at low doses, quick and brutal induction of vomiting helped, but never after the sweet taste emerged. It is a sign of the brain being affected, and one can only find solace in the fact that visionary berries in a lethal dose cause, after the short hallucinatory phase, first a deep sleep, then unconsciousness, from which there is no waking. Actual death, in most cases, arrives by a heartstroke._
> 
> Excerpt from the _Handbook of Healing and Harmful Herbs of the Ethuveraz_. Ed.: Laris Tavar. 3rd, revised edition.)

 

Tero Utenin was very curious by nature -- at least Father told her this was the meaning of the strange word Zharis Athmaza used after the latch of that cupboard mysteriously broke. Father also told her that mongooses are cute little animals, even more _inquisitive_ than her, if possible, but she should not take this as an encouragement. Tero, of course, did just that.

Zharis Athmaza also told Father she was too clever for her own good. That was when Tero decided she felt no remorse at all.

Besides being curious, she also could run faster and climb better than both her brothers -- an advantage that an otherwise thin and weak girl of six years should use any time she might. And use she did it on that summer afternoon, when she fled from her siblings, knowing they wouldn't follow her too long, and once in the woods, she could be alone and have some peace.

She all but flew down the steep slope towards the lake, like the wind that tumbles over the hilltops and sometimes caresses, sometimes tears and breaks the trees -- but she didn't reckon with the raging storm just a day before. Under the trees, far from the beaten path, the carpet of old leaves on the ground was still wet and slick; Tero slid, fell, then rolled almost all the way down, screaming, holding her hands and feet out, to keep from slamming into a tree or a thorny bush. All sore and covered in mud from braids to toe, she finally landed on her back. She took a minute to feel if all her bones remained intact -- they did -- then sat up.

She was where the great old oak tree used to stand, only, the tree itself didn't stand there anymore. It lay there instead, among the other, younger trees it took down when it fell, uprooted by the winds of the storm... and behind the tangle of its roots Tero spied an opening in the hillside, like a mouth of a cave.

Now, that was something she had to see for herself. Especially as she couldn't possibly get any filthier, even if she went inside, or could she…? So she crouched on all fours and tried to peek in.

It was dark inside, she couldn’t see anything. Tero hesitated a bit, but as there was no sign of any animals nearby, she cautiously began to crawl inward.

The opening must have been small to begin with, and now it had been almost all filled up with the soil from among the oak's displaced roots. This was how no one discovered it earlier, hidden behind the thick trunk of the tree. It was now just wide enough for Tero to squeeze first her arms, then her shoulders through, into the darkness: no light could sneak in beside her body.

Small stones and dead wood bit into her palms. She shoved it away; she now felt that it wasn't a proper cave at all, just a shelter-hole that sometimes appeared under a shelf of the red sandstone of the hills, first cut, then sealed by time and weather. It wasn't even two adult-steps deep, but that might just be enough if…

She wiggled and struggled and squirmed, panting and sweating until her skirt tore on a root still outside and her thigh cramped, but finally she could pull her legs in after herself and turn around properly. That was when, in the dim light filtering in from outside, she saw the displaced skull and screamed.

Never in her life had she screamed louder, not even when Father scared her with that bull mask so much two years ago - but while she was older now, and couldn't be scared so easily anymore, this was not a mask either.

Eventually, she stopped. She was still trembling but she realized that there was nothing in there with her but a heap of bones that she herself pushed and kicked apart by crawling in. It had once been someone, but that was a very, very long time ago. It couldn't hurt her. Then she also realized that neither her brothers nor any child in the village she knew would be brave and inquisitive enough to repeat what she just did.

Heartened by this, she slowly looked around -- and saw something glinting faintly, just in her reach. She took a deep breath and sucked in her lower lip. Even though she was not particularly afraid anymore, she didn't wish to deliberately touch it, whatever it was. She leaned closer, just a bit, to see better. It was a ring; dull with age, but surely silver.

Tero hesitated a bit more but the temptation finally became overwhelming. She reached out and plucked the ring from among the small white finger-bones, tucked it in her apron pocket, then crawled out of the hole as quickly as if the long-dead owner might snatch it back from her, and ran.

She had the wits to hide her new treasure in the backyard under the loose stone about which not even her siblings knew before entering the house, and it was a wise decision, because her mother had her undressed and in a tub of soapy water almost before she could have greeted her. It was only on the next morning that she was able to securely take the ring from its hiding place and examine it thoroughly.

It was a signet ring of some sort, but a very strange one: she immediately knew it must be a fake because no one in their right mind would waste silver to make a signet of such a silly creature. Cats hate water -- whoever has heard about a cat _with a tail of a fish?_ Besides, it felt too heavy, so it was probably iron in the inside. Tero felt herself cheated out of the riches she already imagined the ring would buy but whatever. Dach'osmin Liliän, her most beautiful doll wouldn’t mind if the ring was iron or silver.

Dach'osmin Liliän was surely very happy with her _diadem_ , until, a couple of days later, Mother noticed her new adornment and immediately confiscated it. She even scolded Tero for being an obstinate liar when the girl kept to her story of having found the ring under a tree, and told her not to expect any cake that week or the next. Tero, though miffed about losing the ring, wasn't unduly upset about the punishment. After all, she didn't tell Mother exactly how deep under the tree the ring lay -- and in what company. She might not have gotten away so easily with that.

Next weekend, Zharis Athmaza came to buy fresh goat cheese as usual. Mother cut, weighed and wrapped the cheese, then asked him if he had heard about someone or other missing their signet ring. When Zharis Athmaza said no, Mother brought out the ring and said he should take it anyway, and try to find its rightful owner, lest someone accuse them of theft. The maza took the ring, looked at it, then made a funny face, much like Father last week when a piece of apple got caught in his throat.

"Osreian help me," he muttered. "This signet... but how ever could..." He broke off; his face darkened and his fist closed over the ring decisively.

"Yes, we have a fairly good idea whom this ring might have belonged," he said, looking at Mother. "But we wish to verify some facts before we would jump to conclusions." He put the ring very cautiously, as if it could break, into his purse, among the coins, and turned to Tero who watched her trove vanishing just so with a frown. "What dost think, couldst show me the place where found'st this?" he asked cautiously.

Tero nodded slowly.

"Yes, I think so," she said, then added, feeling her own importance: "But it is not worth the time. There is nothing else there to look at. Just those old bones."

 

After he was able to breathe properly again, Zharis Athmaza said to her that the ring might be quite old, but they needed to look at it properly before they could tell for sure, so could Tero just not do anything until he says so, not even go near the place again, _and this time we really mean it, please?_ Then he said to Mother that the ring was supposedly buried with its owner, not as if anyone would want to check that now, but knowing the legend of the manor, it is definitely worth looking at.

Then he left with his cheese and her ring and Mother looked at Tero, scowling in a way the girl knew meant big trouble.

"Under a tree, thou saidst? How many times did we tell thee not to go near that gods-damned house?" she demanded. "The goddesses only know how long the roof would hold, couldst have _died_ there, what ever wert thou thinking?"

Tero for a moment couldn't even open her mouth at the unjust accusation. She, too, heard the stories -- some prince was said to have died there long ago, hanged or poisoned himself, maybe jumped from the highest roof, or simply wasted away in some unnamed misery, all alone in that big house -- and while she was reasonably sure ghosts only existed in tales told to frighten the gullible, she heeded the warning and never ventured too close to the slowly crumbling Imperial manor squatting on the lakeside, between her village and the next.

As a punishment, again for something she didn't do, and also as a way to ensure she would not go anywhere she wasn't supposed to, she had to help Mother making cheese every afternoon for a week, but from the third day on Mother told her tales and they sang together, so she didn't mind it much. She wasn't so sure anyway if she wanted to crawl into that hole again, inquisitive or not.

 

Then a whole month passed and some more -- Mother and Father seemed to have forgotten about the ring, and Tero herself thought about it less and less -- until, on a pleasantly cool afternoon, Zharis Athmaza returned with three others in tow. One was a maza, too, judging by her blue robes -- she introduced herself as Bero Athmaza, and Tero immediately liked her because of their similar names --, but the others said they were Witnesses, and that frightened Tero because she thought Mother was right after all and they were here to throw her into prison for stealing.

As it turned out, they had really come because of the ring. Tero tried to slip back into the children’s room unnoticed while they were recounting names and dates, but Bero Athmaza did notice and shook her head. Her smile was kind, but Tero resigned herself to the worst nonetheless.

"We examined it, using several different methods," the taller Witness was saying, "and each returned the same result. It is the true one, and according to Dachensol Habrobar's records, the only one ever made of this type."

Mother and Father looked at each other, deeply shocked.

"So... everything was true after all," Mother whispered and Tero could have cried out in her justified anger. _Of course it was true!_ Mother should have believed her the first time!

"Nonsense!" Father slammed his hands on the table. "Someone must have heard the stories and thought it a good idea to make a prank of it or what do we know! Besides, how does this prove anything, even if it is the original?

"We assume by the stories you mean the circumstances surrounding the Eiraän Drazhin memoir?" Bero Athmaza asked; when Mother nodded weakly, murmuring something about local tales always growing, being harder to root out than curseweed, she went on. "Well, it took considerable time and effort to get a permit to do so but finally we were able to take a look at the manuscript and determine that indeed it was sealed with this very ring.”

Father looked stunned for a moment, then shoved himself away from the table, muttering something that Tero didn't understand _(what has a cat and mice to do with anything?)_ but sounded vile nevertheless, and did something he only ever did when he was really, really upset: spat into the cold fireplace. "And a thief, too," he finished darkly.

"Please calm down," the taller Witness said. "After all, it is history we are talking about, besides, the truth behind those... stories was never actually confirmed. Consider yourselves lucky. You will be more than adequately compensated for the finding."

"Would rather have remained ignorant and poor," Father snapped. Bero Athmaza sighed tiredly. The shorter Witness looked at Tero.

"So, Min Utenin, now, that it is settled, could you please show us where you found those _utterly uninteresting_ remains?"

 


End file.
